Corporations Scam Educators

How corporations are feeding youth their PR in classrooms

Sara Buckwitz, Craig Cox Special to Utne Reader Online

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Early last week Tim Hermach, president of the Native Forest Council, an activist organization working to preserve publicly owned land, contacted us to help fight against the corporate control of the National Science Teachers' Association.

As John Borowski wrote in the May/June 2001 issue of Utne Reader, propaganda from the timber, coal, and industrial agriculture industries has become a central part of science curricula nationwide. And for the past year, The Native Forest Council has been preparing the launch of their new campaign to fight it: Children for an Honest Education.

The campaign was to be unveiled at the National Science Teacher's Convention in San Diego March 27. But the National Science Teacher's Association, which sponsors the annual convention, has informed Hermach that his organization will not be allowed to display any material that criticizes any of the other exhibitors. 'As you can understand, NSTA's exhibit management is responsible for assuring that the aforementioned rules are complied with by all exhibiting organizations in order to ensure that every exhibitor has the most successful experience possible,' NSTA executive director Gerald Wheeler wrote to Hermach. 'This means that at all times, everyone must adhere to a behavior that respects the rights of other exhibitors.'

The censorship move not only stymies the campaign, Hermach writes, but threatens the health of children. 'Our entire purpose in being at the NSTA is to protect children and protest the dishonest and destructive takeover of environmental curriculum by the worst of corporate America, the polluters and destroyers of not only our earth and its living life-support systems, but of our children's lives as well.'